PART SEVEN

AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD

I found much difficulty in deciphering and editing the manuscripts of Olaf Jansen. However, I have taken the liberty of reconstructing only a very few expressions, and in doing this have in no way changed the spirit or meaning. Otherwise, the original text has neither been added to nor taken from.

It is impossible for me to express my opinion as to the value or reliability of the wonderful statements made by Olaf Jansen. The description here given of the strange lands

and people visited by him, location of cities, the names and directions of rivers, and other information herein combined, conform in every way to the rough drawings given into my custody by this ancient Norseman, which drawings together with the manuscript it is my intention at some later date to give to the Smithsonian Institution, to preserve for the benefit of those interested in the mysteries of the "Farthest North "—the frozen circle of silence. It is certain there are many things in Vedic literature, in "Josephus," the "Odyssey," the "Iliad," Terrien de Lacouperie's "Early History of Chinese Civilization," Flammarion's "Astronomical Myths, "Lenormant's "Beginnings of History," Hesiod's "Theogony,"

Sir John de Maundeville's writings, and Sayce's "Records of the Past," that, to say the least, are strangely in harmony with the seemingly incredible text found in the yellow manuscript of the old Norseman, Olaf Jansen, and now for the first time given to the world.